Top 20% the new 1%?

[Jrr85]

Another issue that was only lightly touched on in the article is health, which I think is going to be one of the major future class distinguishers.  I have noticed that, over the last several years, when I am in a lower socioeconomic environment, the people are, on average, significantly heavier and with more mobility problems.  I am thinking in particular of a local fair we went to about 45 minutes away, where the number of mobility scooters just blew me away (I didn't know you could even use those on a grassy hill).  And these were people in the 40-50 age range, too, not just grandma.  Same thing at the store -- almost never see a scooter at Wegman's, see them all the time at Wal-Mart.  I don't know if it's cause or effect or just a vicious cycle, but it seems like when you grow up with poor food choices and inferior health care, you're more likely to have health problems earlier, and that is going to interfere with your ability to land/keep the kind of good-paying jobs that could help break the cycle.  I mean, I struggle with my weight, too, but I have good doctors (one of whom is trying to help me lose now), I can afford a Crossfit gym to kick my ass and stay mobile, I have a reasonably flexible job and short commute that gives me the time to hit the gym, and I have the education and resources to buy and cook healthier meals.

I have noticed this also, but it has virtually nothing to do with healthcare.  People know when they are fat and generally know how to fix the problem (exercise some and eat a little healthier).  The problem we have is that the government has pushed ridiculously harmful health misinformation for decades and also that a large portion of the population has just stopped trying.  I think the first problem has largely caused the second problem, because a lot of people probably got discouraged by their inability to lose weight eating a low fat (and as a result high carb diet) and then there is also not nearly as much stigma associated with being obese in most social circles like there used to be (which is not necessarily a bad thing, but does impact incentives to avoid being fat, which usually maps pretty closely to being healthy).
 
I would also say that resources are rarely the problem when it comes to eating healthy; it's just lack of knowledge accompanied by poor personal choices.  It's quite common to see SNAP beneficiaries buying expensive, heavily processed foods and sugary drinks.  They almost certainly don't know how to cook healthy and don't realize that it would be cheaper to do so, but at the same time, it would be a huge improvement for them to just to buy things like spaghetti noodles and prepared spaghetti sauce and white bread and processed sandwich meat for sandwiches.  Even if they can't eat healthy, I have to believe they are aware that what they are buying is awful and definitely going to make them fat.   

[Bucksandreds]

20%ers: in the last year, count the number of people with whom you have you had meaningful, non-transactional conversations, who:

- didn't go to college, or
- have had children out of wedlock, or
- are the beneficiaries of a direct transfer government assistance program, or
- can name 3 or more NASCAR drivers

Most of you can probably count these interactions on one hand.

Is that brush heavy? It looks pretty broad, which is why I ask.

My (now) wife and intentionally had children prior to marrying. Children were critically important; marriage was only important when she wanted to downshift to SAHM and part-time consulting in her field.

Several colleagues didn't go to college (e-commerce/software). I previously worked on a NASCAR computer game.

I speak with my wife daily and one of those colleagues nearly every workday.

If you spoke with me or my wife (~2-3%-ers), you'd probably not place us as one of the unwashed masses, though I check two of the boxes on your redneck checklist.

It's not a redneck list. All 4 items on that list are extremely common behavior in America. 2 out of 3 adults don't have college degrees. 40% of children are born out of wedlock. 1 in 7 Americans is on SNAP alone. NASCAR is widely popular sport.

I know people who fit these criteria too, but my point is that they amount to a tiny fraction of my social circle. And parsing your response, it sounds like yours too. You may speak with your wife daily, but she still counts as one person.

My point is that it's no wonder there are tensions when the two groups rarely intersect.

I agree with your premise as it's clearly meant to be a generalization with many exceptions. Let's see Jimmy Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr (maybe retired), Carl Edwards, Kurt and Kyle Busch, Clint Boyer. I despise NASCAR but watch lots of sports. Should be people who like NASCAR instead. All of your stereotypes are accurate.

[Bucksandreds]

All the while, they support policies and practices that protect their economic position and prevent poorer kids from climbing the income ladder: legacy admissions, the preferential tax treatment of investment income, 529 college savings plans, exclusionary zoning, occupational licensing, and restrictions on the immigration of white-collar professionals. 

Having "preferential tax treatment of investment income" does not prevent poor people from getting better paying jobs.
Having a 529 plan does not prevent poor people from getting better paying jobs.
Restrictions on the immigration of white-collar professionals restrictions on the immigration of white-collar professionals (it encourages expanding employment of people already here into white collar jobs).
Occupational licensing could be seen as "preventing poor people from getting better paying jobs", but I'm pretty sure we all still want out doctors to have passed medical school, right?
Legacy admissions are a small fraction of admissions to colleges and, I'd argue, are likely over-shadowed by "equal opportunity" quotas that ensure plenty of people who are "less qualified" than their "higher income peers" get into schools.

I'd say the author has correctly identified some advantages that are available to some people to "get ahead" of others, but that's a far cry from 'supporting practices and policies' 'to prevent poorer kids from climbing the income ladder'. Might as well say anything a person (regardless of income/wealth/etc) does to help themselves or their family out is done to "prevent others from having such opportunities". You shouldn't have accepted that job because it means someone else shouldn't get it, someone poorer could have needed the money more than you do....

The harm from immigration restrictions and occupational licensing isn't primarily from preventing lower income earners from getting a job (or even at all with respect to immigration), the harm is that low skilled people have to compete with low wage immigrant labor (whether legal or illegal), while white collar workers outside of IT are largely not just avoiding the competition from immigrants, but actually benefiting from artificial barriers to competition.  So low skilled people simultaneously experience downward pressure on their wages while simultaneously paying escalated prices for the up to 1/3 of services (depending on the state) in the U.S. that are protected by occupational licensing.

I'm a dentist and I'll admit, partially ignorant to this. Foreign trained dentists who have Bachelors in Dental Surgery have to get their doctorate here. Is that a bad thing that we require highly competent dentists? Dentistry is overpriced but student loans, insurances effect of not reflecting the real price to the patient, people's desire for new fancy dental offices to go to, etc help encourage that. If all foreign trained dentists were allowed to come here with a bachelors and work then you'd have not a single American dentist as no one would take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to compete on prices with dentists with no loans.  My opinion is that we need to increase the income of those in the lower and lower middle class so they feel that they can truly become a part of the American dream and maybe they'd have a little more respect for their own lives. Communities decay when jobs that can provide for a family dry up. Drug use rises, schools go bad, etc. low paying jobs cause social decay. Not the other way around.  I'd accomplish this change I seek through a massive increase in the earned income tax credit paid for by taxing the upper middle class and upper class more. Literally the lower classes would get more on their paycheck than their gross pay.

[charis]

Question for those who choose to give their kids the best possible education (best schools/districts) by avoiding the very low-performing school (by choice, not because you need the special ed. services for example):

What are you afraid will happen to your kid if he or she goes to a bad/low testing/high poverty/high ESL population school?

My kid just finished first grade in a small urban neighborhood school in the worst district in the state, with below state average test scores.  She started kindergarten there last year reading a tiny bit and by Jan of this year she was reading at a 6th grade level and scoring in the 99+ percentile in all her national testing.  This is by all popular measures (greatschools, etc/test scores) a "bad" school.

It's been shown that integration of socioeconomic groups in school raises the test score of students in poverty and does not harm the wealthier students.  I understand the need to play the game - I will admit that I am a quasi-hypocrite (dance/music lessons, summer camp, upper-middle class city neighborhood).  I admit that I will not consider sending my children to worse schools in the same "bad" district.  But we are making a serious effort to be a lesser part of the problem. 

If everyone decided to take a chance an a crappy city school instead of moving to the great suburban district, those schools would stop being crappy and we wouldn't have to wait for the government to force us into something (because we know how well that works).

[sokoloff]

We have a weighted lottery system in my city. We didn't get into any of our first 3 choice schools and had to pick a low scoring/high ESL/"worse" neighborhood school until we cleared the waitlist for the "better" school near to where we live.

For us, the logistics alone (crossing my city at morning bus commuting hours can be a 25-35 minute trip one-way). For my wife to drop the kids off would be over an hour out of her day rather than the 20 minutes that it is to/from the local school. Because of the lottery system, my kids have classmates from some of the farther away neighborhoods and it's a PITA to have playdates with them for the same reason. If those parents don't have a car, we drive across town to pick them up and rarely have "away" playdates, so the pickup/dropoff is 4 one-way trips.

None of that is about academics, but from volunteering, I also see the "apartment kids" as someone else called them. They take a wildly disproportionate amount of the teacher attention, which is a finite resource. Yes, I'd like those kids to have a chance to develop as well as they're able, but the other kids also need development steering.

Academically, our kids will be fine anywhere.

[Bucksandreds]

Question for those who choose to give their kids the best possible education (best schools/districts) by avoiding the very low-performing school (by choice, not because you need the special ed. services for example):

What are you afraid will happen to your kid if he or she goes to a bad/low testing/high poverty/high ESL population school?

My kid just finished first grade in a small urban neighborhood school in the worst district in the state, with below state average test scores.  She started kindergarten there last year reading a tiny bit and by Jan of this year she was reading at a 6th grade level and scoring in the 99+ percentile in all her national testing.  This is by all popular measures (greatschools, etc/test scores) a "bad" school.

It's been shown that integration of socioeconomic groups in school raises the test score of students in poverty and does not harm the wealthier students.  I understand the need to play the game - I will admit that I am a quasi-hypocrite (dance/music lessons, summer camp, upper-middle class city neighborhood).  I admit that I will not consider sending my children to worse schools in the same "bad" district.  But we are making a serious effort to be a lesser part of the problem. 

If everyone decided to take a chance an a crappy city school instead of moving to the great suburban district, those schools would stop being crappy and we wouldn't have to wait for the government to force us into something (because we know how well that works).

I'm from a worse school district than where I'm raising my kids. It's peers that are the problem and that has its biggest effect in teenage years. One of my best friends from junior high is dead from heroin, one delivers beer for a living at 35 and two I'm not sure if they are alive or dead but they were on course for prison/death when I lost touch. I turned out ok but I screwed off with them and barely got into college and only 'turned it on' when I left town and changed my peers. I'm not worried about my kids grades anywhere. I'm worried about the peers. Don't bother with your 'kids do bad stuff everywhere comments.' I'm talking odds and the odds are in your favor in the higher rated districts.  I'll continue to pick what's best for my kids while voting to change the system to be more equitable.  Not doing what I know is best for my kids would be evil.

[StarBright]

Question for those who choose to give their kids the best possible education (best schools/districts) by avoiding the very low-performing school (by choice, not because you need the special ed. services for example):

What are you afraid will happen to your kid if he or she goes to a bad/low testing/high poverty/high ESL population school?

My kid just finished first grade in a small urban neighborhood school in the worst district in the state, with below state average test scores.  She started kindergarten there last year reading a tiny bit and by Jan of this year she was reading at a 6th grade level and scoring in the 99+ percentile in all her national testing.  This is by all popular measures (greatschools, etc/test scores) a "bad" school.

It's been shown that integration of socioeconomic groups in school raises the test score of students in poverty and does not harm the wealthier students.  I understand the need to play the game - I will admit that I am a quasi-hypocrite (dance/music lessons, summer camp, upper-middle class city neighborhood).  I admit that I will not consider sending my children to worse schools in the same "bad" district.  But we are making a serious effort to be a lesser part of the problem. 

If everyone decided to take a chance an a crappy city school instead of moving to the great suburban district, those schools would stop being crappy and we wouldn't have to wait for the government to force us into something (because we know how well that works).

I'm from a worse school district than where I'm raising my kids. It's peers that are the problem and that has its biggest effect in teenage years. One of my best friends from junior high is dead from heroin, one delivers beer for a living at 35 and two I'm not sure if they are alive or dead but they were on course for prison/death when I lost touch. I turned out ok but I screwed off with them and barely got into college and only 'turned it on' when I left town and changed my peers. I'm not worried about my kids grades anywhere. I'm worried about the peers. Don't bother with your 'kids do bad stuff everywhere comments.' I'm talking odds and the odds are in your favor in the higher rated districts.  I'll continue to pick what's best for my kids while voting to change the system to be more equitable.  Not doing what I know is best for my kids would be evil.

This was my experience as well. I was okay and made into college and out into life but I have friends who have also been touched by the heroin epidemic as well as more than one friend that are already grandparents in their 30s. My brother (raised in the exact same house as me, the exact same way) still lives in the old neighborhood, never finished community college, and deals with addiction problems that stemmed from drinking that started in late middle school. Two siblings and we ended up 50-50. I'm not taking the chance of raising my kids in a neighborhood like I grew up in.

[PhrugalPhan]

The harm from immigration restrictions and occupational licensing isn't primarily from preventing lower income earners from getting a job (or even at all with respect to immigration), the harm is that low skilled people have to compete with low wage immigrant labor (whether legal or illegal), while white collar workers outside of IT are largely not just avoiding the competition from immigrants, but actually benefiting from artificial barriers to competition.  So low skilled people simultaneously experience downward pressure on their wages while simultaneously paying escalated prices for the up to 1/3 of services (depending on the state) in the U.S. that are protected by occupational licensing.

This is so true.  Even being in IT I have done well but I know those I left behind haven't.  Yet others from where I grew up that left for greener pastures criticize those left behind if they want to stop immigration.  Their attitude of superiority really irritates me when I see it online.

[charis]

Question for those who choose to give their kids the best possible education (best schools/districts) by avoiding the very low-performing school (by choice, not because you need the special ed. services for example):

What are you afraid will happen to your kid if he or she goes to a bad/low testing/high poverty/high ESL population school?

My kid just finished first grade in a small urban neighborhood school in the worst district in the state, with below state average test scores.  She started kindergarten there last year reading a tiny bit and by Jan of this year she was reading at a 6th grade level and scoring in the 99+ percentile in all her national testing.  This is by all popular measures (greatschools, etc/test scores) a "bad" school.

It's been shown that integration of socioeconomic groups in school raises the test score of students in poverty and does not harm the wealthier students.  I understand the need to play the game - I will admit that I am a quasi-hypocrite (dance/music lessons, summer camp, upper-middle class city neighborhood).  I admit that I will not consider sending my children to worse schools in the same "bad" district.  But we are making a serious effort to be a lesser part of the problem. 

If everyone decided to take a chance an a crappy city school instead of moving to the great suburban district, those schools would stop being crappy and we wouldn't have to wait for the government to force us into something (because we know how well that works).

I'm from a worse school district than where I'm raising my kids. It's peers that are the problem and that has its biggest effect in teenage years. One of my best friends from junior high is dead from heroin, one delivers beer for a living at 35 and two I'm not sure if they are alive or dead but they were on course for prison/death when I lost touch. I turned out ok but I screwed off with them and barely got into college and only 'turned it on' when I left town and changed my peers. I'm not worried about my kids grades anywhere. I'm worried about the peers. Don't bother with your 'kids do bad stuff everywhere comments.' I'm talking odds and the odds are in your favor in the higher rated districts.  I'll continue to pick what's best for my kids while voting to change the system to be more equitable.  Not doing what I know is best for my kids would be evil.

This was my experience as well. I was okay and made into college and out into life but I have friends who have also been touched by the heroin epidemic as well as more than one friend that are already grandparents in their 30s. My brother (raised in the exact same house as me, the exact same way) still lives in the old neighborhood, never finished community college, and deals with addiction problems that stemmed from drinking that started in late middle school. Two siblings and we ended up 50-50. I'm not taking the chance of raising my kids in a neighborhood like I grew up in.

Well, we live in a great neighborhood.  One set of neighbors raised four kids in our "bad" district, all went to good colleges, two of four were ivy league (if that's your thing).  There are many other stories like that in our neighborhood.  Addiction, particularly heroin is actually prevalent in the "excellent" suburban high schools.  It's disturbing how often it seems to be claiming lives these days.

[Abe]

I think that the overall socio-economic status of the kids at a school does affect individual outcomes, but not significant enough to warrant that alone as being a red flag. However, with the way we fund school districts, that also has an indirect effect through resources available to students. With regards to drugs, I don't think there is good evidence that poorer students are more likely to abuse drugs than richer students. They probably just abuse different ones. We can't fix that dysfunction with changes in tax & school funding policy, but probably could fix some of the economic issues that lead to poor performance, depression and subsequent drug abuse.

[MMMarbleheader]

I live in Massachusetts and this is taken to another level because we don't have counties. All school aside from vocational is run either by a town or a regional system of two or three towns. I live in a top 10% school town and we are 97% white. My town is fairly large at 20k but towns as small as 5k have their own high school.

On a local level this is great. Most small towns are run by the pre revolution open town meeting government where we all pile into a gym every may and vote on town finances from transfering money from one account to another to buying police cars to building a new school.

Any tax increase greater than 2.5% has to go to a town wide override vote. Guess which towns shoot down the school funding overrides? The poorer towns that don't want to fund the schools so the cycle continues.

One thing that always confused me is that those on the left love this income inequality theme yet come out in mass against charter schools and vouchers. There are no county run magnet schools here and little school choice. You are born in a poor city? That's the education you will get. The teachers union lobby plays a big role in this.

[Jrr85]

The harm from immigration restrictions and occupational licensing isn't primarily from preventing lower income earners from getting a job (or even at all with respect to immigration), the harm is that low skilled people have to compete with low wage immigrant labor (whether legal or illegal), while white collar workers outside of IT are largely not just avoiding the competition from immigrants, but actually benefiting from artificial barriers to competition.  So low skilled people simultaneously experience downward pressure on their wages while simultaneously paying escalated prices for the up to 1/3 of services (depending on the state) in the U.S. that are protected by occupational licensing.

I'm a dentist and I'll admit, partially ignorant to this. Foreign trained dentists who have Bachelors in Dental Surgery have to get their doctorate here. Is that a bad thing that we require highly competent dentists? Dentistry is overpriced but student loans, insurances effect of not reflecting the real price to the patient, people's desire for new fancy dental offices to go to, etc help encourage that. If all foreign trained dentists were allowed to come here with a bachelors and work then you'd have not a single American dentist as no one would take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to compete on prices with dentists with no loans.  My opinion is that we need to increase the income of those in the lower and lower middle class so they feel that they can truly become a part of the American dream and maybe they'd have a little more respect for their own lives. Communities decay when jobs that can provide for a family dry up. Drug use rises, schools go bad, etc. low paying jobs cause social decay. Not the other way around.  I'd accomplish this change I seek through a massive increase in the earned income tax credit paid for by taxing the upper middle class and upper class more. Literally the lower classes would get more on their paycheck than their gross pay.

The vast majority of occupational licensing involves not ensuring a basic competency of the professional but economic protectionism.  Look at how many state dental boards try to prevent non-dentists from offering whitening services.  And that's not to pick on Dentists; it's like that for pretty much every profession.  For example, there is no reason for lawyers to be required to go to school for three years at an accredited school.  They could easily set up a much harder bar exam (the current ones are jokes if you look at it from the perspective of making sure people that pass are competent lawyers) and then let anybody that passes hold themselves out as lawyers.  And lawyers are actually one of the least bad professions.  At least they don't artificially restrict the number of law schools, and there is a way bigger supply of lawyers than their is business for lawyers, unlike say medical schools or dental schools.   

And low paying jobs don't cause social decay.  Adults not working at all cause social decay.  And a lot of "low paying jobs" would pay plenty, if those workers weren't having to pay elevated costs for healthcare, education, legal services, dental services, hair cuts, housing, etc. etc. etc. 

[StarBright]

One thing that always confused me is that those on the left love this income inequality theme yet come out in mass against charter schools and vouchers. There are no county run magnet schools here and little school choice. You are born in a poor city? That's the education you will get. The teachers union lobby plays a big role in this.

Remember that the money has to come from somewhere. The vast majority of voucher programs that have been proposed would take money out of the local school system to pay for the voucher. Likewise, if the state or federal government has the funds to pay for the vouchers, why can't they just put that money into the public school system in the first place? So most just take the funds from the school district and you end up making a bad situation (bad public schools) worse by depriving them of funding. In those school districts, vouchers can effectively kill the public school system.

That has the posiblity of leaving you in an area where the only option is charter schools. However, another major concern is that the charter schools can close in the middle of the school year and leave everyone in a lurch. So there are some concerns there as well. Consider the worse case scenario of a high schooler that can't graduate because the school shuts down. What is their legal recourse at that point? With a public school system there are at least governmental tools you can use to ensure that things are wound down in a smooth fashion, but private companies can just file Chapter 7 and that's that.

In theory some sort of voucher system might work on paper, but there are a lot of externalities that programs that have been implemented simply haven't managed to resolve.

Excellent answer! In addition to the above I would add that charter/voucher systems also don't guarantee education for all - charters can kick out/not accept students for any reason. When public schools shut down because they've lost their funding to the charters, who will educate the kids that the charters don't want?

[Bucksandreds]

The harm from immigration restrictions and occupational licensing isn't primarily from preventing lower income earners from getting a job (or even at all with respect to immigration), the harm is that low skilled people have to compete with low wage immigrant labor (whether legal or illegal), while white collar workers outside of IT are largely not just avoiding the competition from immigrants, but actually benefiting from artificial barriers to competition.  So low skilled people simultaneously experience downward pressure on their wages while simultaneously paying escalated prices for the up to 1/3 of services (depending on the state) in the U.S. that are protected by occupational licensing.

I'm a dentist and I'll admit, partially ignorant to this. Foreign trained dentists who have Bachelors in Dental Surgery have to get their doctorate here. Is that a bad thing that we require highly competent dentists? Dentistry is overpriced but student loans, insurances effect of not reflecting the real price to the patient, people's desire for new fancy dental offices to go to, etc help encourage that. If all foreign trained dentists were allowed to come here with a bachelors and work then you'd have not a single American dentist as no one would take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to compete on prices with dentists with no loans.  My opinion is that we need to increase the income of those in the lower and lower middle class so they feel that they can truly become a part of the American dream and maybe they'd have a little more respect for their own lives. Communities decay when jobs that can provide for a family dry up. Drug use rises, schools go bad, etc. low paying jobs cause social decay. Not the other way around.  I'd accomplish this change I seek through a massive increase in the earned income tax credit paid for by taxing the upper middle class and upper class more. Literally the lower classes would get more on their paycheck than their gross pay.

The vast majority of occupational licensing involves not ensuring a basic competency of the professional but economic protectionism.  Look at how many state dental boards try to prevent non-dentists from offering whitening services.  And that's not to pick on Dentists; it's like that for pretty much every profession.  For example, there is no reason for lawyers to be required to go to school for three years at an accredited school.  They could easily set up a much harder bar exam (the current ones are jokes if you look at it from the perspective of making sure people that pass are competent lawyers) and then let anybody that passes hold themselves out as lawyers.  And lawyers are actually one of the least bad professions.  At least they don't artificially restrict the number of law schools, and there is a way bigger supply of lawyers than their is business for lawyers, unlike say medical schools or dental schools.   

And low paying jobs don't cause social decay.  Adults not working at all cause social decay.  And a lot of "low paying jobs" would pay plenty, if those workers weren't having to pay elevated costs for healthcare, education, legal services, dental services, hair cuts, housing, etc. etc. etc.

Bad example about dentists. Only professional tooth whitening in regulated by dentistry. White strips, etc which are just as highly effective when used over time are available in the grocery store. Also many malls have stands where professional whitening is done as long as the 'patient' self applies the treatment.

And low wages do cause social decay. Low wages are linked to lower marriage levels, higher unmarried birth rate which is directly linked to societal decay.

[Jrr85]

[quote author=Bucksandreds link=topic=75061.msg1598085#msg1598085
Bad example about dentists. Only professional tooth whitening in regulated by dentistry. White strips, etc which are just as highly effective when used over time are available in the grocery store. Also many malls have stands where professional whitening is done as long as the 'patient' self applies the treatment.

And low wages do cause social decay. Low wages are linked to lower marriage levels, higher unmarried birth rate which is directly linked to societal decay.
[/quote]

You're proving my point about the licensing laws being about economic protection, not patient protection.  It is legal for someone with no training to pay somebody else to do it to themselves, but illegal for them to have the same treatment applied by trained person, unless that person also gets the blessing of the dental board?  How is that about anything but economic protectionism? 

Low wages being correlated with social decay is not the same thing as causing social decay.  A married couple with two low wage earners that stress education and personal responsibility to their kids are not going to cause social decay.  But people with that kind of social capital typically don't end up in low wage jobs. 

For people that do end up in low wage jobs, jobs at least provide them an opportunity to improve themselves, compared to the alternative of not working.  It's not like these are people with solid social capital that go work for low wages and decide, maybe I should pick up a substance abuse problem and have a kid out of wedlock.  Low wages are a symptom of other problems (or maybe just temporary conditions for young people).  They are not destroying social capital, even if they are not great for building it.

[Jrr85]

One thing that always confused me is that those on the left love this income inequality theme yet come out in mass against charter schools and vouchers. There are no county run magnet schools here and little school choice. You are born in a poor city? That's the education you will get. The teachers union lobby plays a big role in this.

Remember that the money has to come from somewhere. The vast majority of voucher programs that have been proposed would take money out of the local school system to pay for the voucher. Likewise, if the state or federal government has the funds to pay for the vouchers, why can't they just put that money into the public school system in the first place? So most just take the funds from the school district and you end up making a bad situation (bad public schools) worse by depriving them of funding. In those school districts, vouchers can effectively kill the public school system.

That has the posiblity of leaving you in an area where the only option is charter schools. However, another major concern is that the charter schools can close in the middle of the school year and leave everyone in a lurch. So there are some concerns there as well. Consider the worse case scenario of a high schooler that can't graduate because the school shuts down. What is their legal recourse at that point? With a public school system there are at least governmental tools you can use to ensure that things are wound down in a smooth fashion, but private companies can just file Chapter 7 and that's that.

In theory some sort of voucher system might work on paper, but there are a lot of externalities that programs that have been implemented simply haven't managed to resolve.

So what if it takes money out of local schools?  For one, money only leaves if the students leave.  If they don't want the student to leave, they should provide a service that makes the student/student's parents not want to leave.  For another, the money is often being taken from schools that are destroying human capital.  The more kids we can get out of there the better, and any money taken out of there is not making things worse. 

Also, even if the schools weren't largely destructive, what would be wrong with poor and lower middle class people getting some of the options that upper middle class and rich people do?  If my children aren't a good fit for my local public school, whether it be because of their personality or even just particular interests, I'll send them somewhere that they're more likely to thrive.  We're paying the tax money regardless, why not give poor and lower middle class families at least a little bit of that flexibility. 

But looking at school districts where charter and voucher movements are most prominent, it just blows my mind that people are so callous to take the position of, hey, vouchers and charter schools are perfect, so let's just condemn poor students to terrible schools unless and until we come up with a panacea.  I don't think people would be nearly as callous if there was a risk of their own kids being in that situation. 

[sokoloff]

So what if it takes money out of local schools?  For one, money only leaves if the students leave.  If they don't want the student to leave, they should provide a service that makes the student/student's parents not want to leave.  For another, the money is often being taken from schools that are destroying human capital.  The more kids we can get out of there the better, and any money taken out of there is not making things worse.

First, I should probably disclaim that I'm generally libertarian, believe in creating and harnessing economic forces, and in favor of school choice.

However, school choice via vouchers that take money from public schools do harm public schools. Running a school or school system entails both fixed costs and variable costs (from the perspective of additional students). You don't pay school admin staff more when another student joins the school. You don't pay janitorial staff additional when another student joins. You can often accommodate an additional student without even hiring another teacher (though teachers are clearly a variable cost, they are a variable cost with quantization applied).

Taking out a student and taking the average amount of money that the school/system spends on a student is not a zero-sum proposition for the public school.

But looking at school districts where charter and voucher movements are most prominent, it just blows my mind that people are so callous to take the position of, hey, vouchers and charter schools are perfect, so let's just condemn poor students to terrible schools unless and until we come up with a panacea.  I don't think people would be nearly as callous if there was a risk of their own kids being in that situation.

I don't understand what you're trying to say in this paragraph. Can you help me understand it better?

[Bucksandreds]

[quote author=Bucksandreds link=topic=75061.msg1598085#msg1598085
Bad example about dentists. Only professional tooth whitening in regulated by dentistry. White strips, etc which are just as highly effective when used over time are available in the grocery store. Also many malls have stands where professional whitening is done as long as the 'patient' self applies the treatment.

And low wages do cause social decay. Low wages are linked to lower marriage levels, higher unmarried birth rate which is directly linked to societal decay.

You're proving my point about the licensing laws being about economic protection, not patient protection.  It is legal for someone with no training to pay somebody else to do it to themselves, but illegal for them to have the same treatment applied by trained person, unless that person also gets the blessing of the dental board?  How is that about anything but economic protectionism? 

Low wages being correlated with social decay is not the same thing as causing social decay.  A married couple with two low wage earners that stress education and personal responsibility to their kids are not going to cause social decay.  But people with that kind of social capital typically don't end up in low wage jobs. 

For people that do end up in low wage jobs, jobs at least provide them an opportunity to improve themselves, compared to the alternative of not working.  It's not like these are people with solid social capital that go work for low wages and decide, maybe I should pick up a substance abuse problem and have a kid out of wedlock.  Low wages are a symptom of other problems (or maybe just temporary conditions for young people).  They are not destroying social capital, even if they are not great for building it.
[/quote]

If your point is that licensing laws effect only the margins of professions and only to very minor degrees then yes, I proved your point. It's a bad example on your part. There are much better examples out there.

Low wages are a symptom of low wage jobs being the only jobs available. You're borderline arguing that poor life decisions are the cause of non higher wage job availability. I'm done arguing with you. I'm sure you're refreshing screen right now and will be formulating your response within seconds. I've got a life to live.

[mm1970]

Question for those who choose to give their kids the best possible education (best schools/districts) by avoiding the very low-performing school (by choice, not because you need the special ed. services for example):

What are you afraid will happen to your kid if he or she goes to a bad/low testing/high poverty/high ESL population school?

My kid just finished first grade in a small urban neighborhood school in the worst district in the state, with below state average test scores.  She started kindergarten there last year reading a tiny bit and by Jan of this year she was reading at a 6th grade level and scoring in the 99+ percentile in all her national testing.  This is by all popular measures (greatschools, etc/test scores) a "bad" school.

It's been shown that integration of socioeconomic groups in school raises the test score of students in poverty and does not harm the wealthier students.  I understand the need to play the game - I will admit that I am a quasi-hypocrite (dance/music lessons, summer camp, upper-middle class city neighborhood).  I admit that I will not consider sending my children to worse schools in the same "bad" district.  But we are making a serious effort to be a lesser part of the problem. 

If everyone decided to take a chance an a crappy city school instead of moving to the great suburban district, those schools would stop being crappy and we wouldn't have to wait for the government to force us into something (because we know how well that works).

I think a lot of people want their "top 20%" kid to be even better?  It really depends.
- Some of my friends want their kids to be the best of the best.  So when they got into the GATE magnet program, they transferred
- Some of my friends have kids who had a hard time making friends
- Some of the grades at our school are ... not great.  Not a lot of smart kids, and the poorer kids are a bunch of big mean bullies.  Other grades are more well balanced.  So several families in the grades above and below my son's grade gave up and transferred
- Some families want to write a check and not volunteer.  The effort involved in fundraising at our school (50% ESL and 70% poverty) is a lot more than the school down the street.
- Before you give me too much credit for "sticking it out" - we transferred out of the school that is 70% ESL and 95% poor to this one.  Can I really blame families from transferring out of our new school to the school that is 20% ESL and 20% poverty?  Not really.  Those kids get to go on *every* field trip, and get all sorts of extra classes that we don't get.
- I'm going to touch on Gifted kids.  Because yes, integration of kids in different SES levels is good for the poor kids and doesn't harm the wealthy kids, the same cannot be said for integration of slower kids and regular kids with gifted kids.  That does harm the gifted kids, often, because they get bored.  (So we lose a lot of GATE kids to the magnet school because they are only 1/2 mile away.)

- Our district started doing something new with junior high.  We have 4 JH schools.  This awesome school, mostly white, #1.  The next school, really good, #2, mostly suburban.  The next school, partially urban, but also includes the really wealthy part of town.  Still a really good school, and BIG, so a lot of variety.  And school #4.  Lots of poverty, smaller school, not as many students.

- So school #4 had a single group of kids in the honors program, and "everyone else".  The honors program maybe had 40 kids.  All of the wealthy kids who were slated to this school simply transferred to school #1 or #3.  Mostly #1.  #1 grew, and just opened new classrooms for the transfers.  Then they started asking for money for new classrooms.  The district said "no".  Last year, they stated that #1 could only accept transfers to fill out their existing incoming 7th grade, they could not create a new classroom. Some parents freaked out and were "lucky" they got in on a sibling transfer.  But all the other kids had to go elsewhere.  Lo and behold, the #4 school now has two full classes of honors students.

[mm1970]

One thing that always confused me is that those on the left love this income inequality theme yet come out in mass against charter schools and vouchers. There are no county run magnet schools here and little school choice. You are born in a poor city? That's the education you will get. The teachers union lobby plays a big role in this.

Charter schools can refuse to accept anyone that they don't want.

Voucher systems DECIMATE the education options for special needs kids.  Public schools have no choice but to educate these students, and they need support.

[mm1970]

I would also say that resources are rarely the problem when it comes to eating healthy; it's just lack of knowledge accompanied by poor personal choices.  It's quite common to see SNAP beneficiaries buying expensive, heavily processed foods and sugary drinks.  They almost certainly don't know how to cook healthy and don't realize that it would be cheaper to do so, but at the same time, it would be a huge improvement for them to just to buy things like spaghetti noodles and prepared spaghetti sauce and white bread and processed sandwich meat for sandwiches.  Even if they can't eat healthy, I have to believe they are aware that what they are buying is awful and definitely going to make them fat.   

It's a lot more complicated than that.  Carbs are cheap.  Stress is very harmful and causes weight gain.

We eat spaghetti noodles and prepared sauce weekly, and we are healthy and not overweight.

[WhiteTrashCash]

Where I live, we pay a massive amount of property taxes, because a portion of our taxes go to fund the underprivileged urban schools that have a lot more problems yet have no local tax base for funding. They have more students with special needs, more students on free breakfast/lunch, etc. However, there are also a lot of problems with this system of funding and it's angering people in my community. Despite the fact that these urban students are receiving three times the amount of funding per student as students in our district, they still go to school in rundown buildings with asbestos/lead problems. They still have no technology in the classroom to prepare them for 21st century jobs. They still have no textbooks.

A big part of the problem is that the urban areas in our state have an elite class who hoard money for themselves at the expense of their community. They spend all the tax money on hiring relatives and friends to unnecessary administrative positions instead of paying for essential services for the students. They waste tax money on facilities/equipment/training for athletes, which gives the students the impression that sports is their only path to a decent future. It's sickening.

I honestly don't know how to solve the problem. It makes me really upset, because I came from a disadvantaged community myself and education was the way I was able to escape from poverty. These students aren't getting the same opportunity and it's due to the actions of their own community's leaders.

[Jrr85]

So what if it takes money out of local schools?  For one, money only leaves if the students leave.  If they don't want the student to leave, they should provide a service that makes the student/student's parents not want to leave.  For another, the money is often being taken from schools that are destroying human capital.  The more kids we can get out of there the better, and any money taken out of there is not making things worse.

It's a problem because it can actually doom a good school district to a death spiral without that many students being taken out. This is why one of the really controversial aspects of vouchers is if religious schools should be included or not. It requires no stretch of the imagination to believe that there are parents that will pull their children out of good public schools to send them to a religious charter school. That pulls funds away from the public school so the quality of education drops, that causes parents to move their children to charter schools, and so forth.

having to manage fluctuating populations is an issue that private schools deal with all the time, so I'm not sure why public schools can't also handle it.  And if people flood out of a public school, yes, that would make it hard on the public school, but if parents are dying to pull their kids out of the school, it doesn't seem like such a terrible thing that the school struggles. 

Also, even if the schools weren't largely destructive, what would be wrong with poor and lower middle class people getting some of the options that upper middle class and rich people do?  If my children aren't a good fit for my local public school, whether it be because of their personality or even just particular interests, I'll send them somewhere that they're more likely to thrive.  We're paying the tax money regardless, why not give poor and lower middle class families at least a little bit of that flexibility.

Vouchers aren't going to give poor and middle class people access to the same education that upper middle class and rich people have. Even the best charter schools cannot compete with schools like St. Paul's. With enough time the educational quality might get there, but it's going to take a long time. Even then you still have the very pragmatic issues with regards to scale. St. Paul's has a 4:1 student to teacher ratio and the annual tuition ($56,460) reflects that. You figure out a way to have student teacher ratios for $2,000 - $5,000 per student with the same quality of a place like St. Paul's and you could be very wealthy.

  Which is why I said "some of the options" and "a little bit of that flexibility".  And a little bit goes a long, long way.  I know lots of people that came from very mediocre school systems that are thriving, because as long as the school is not a destructive environment, it's not hard for reasonably smart kids from reasonably stable and supportive homes to thrive even in a mediocre school.  But I know very few people that have made it out of shitty elementary and high schools.  And there are a lot more shitty schools than mediocre schools in most of the places I've lived, so I have to think the odds are pretty long for those unfortunate kids. 

Public schools can actually be a very efficient way to get a primary education to millions of people. The biggest problem that the United States has is how the system is funded. Property taxes are a horrible way of actually doing it.

  The blind faith people have in money to fix problems in schools is amazing.  The school I went to was actually pretty good and spent about 25% less per pupil than the shitty school in the same town, and the shitty school was larger and had better economies of scale.  There are some places where money makes a difference, but look at how many terrible schools spend near the top in per pupil spending.  Money is not the primary (or even a) problem for a lot of (most?) terrible schools. 

[Jrr85]

I would also say that resources are rarely the problem when it comes to eating healthy; it's just lack of knowledge accompanied by poor personal choices.  It's quite common to see SNAP beneficiaries buying expensive, heavily processed foods and sugary drinks.  They almost certainly don't know how to cook healthy and don't realize that it would be cheaper to do so, but at the same time, it would be a huge improvement for them to just to buy things like spaghetti noodles and prepared spaghetti sauce and white bread and processed sandwich meat for sandwiches.  Even if they can't eat healthy, I have to believe they are aware that what they are buying is awful and definitely going to make them fat.   

It's a lot more complicated than that.  Carbs are cheap.  Stress is very harmful and causes weight gain.

We eat spaghetti noodles and prepared sauce weekly, and we are healthy and not overweight.

It's not more complicated than that.  As you said, you eat spaghetti noodls and prepared sauce weekly and are healthy.  Spagheetti noodles and prepared sauce are pretty much as simple to make as your going to get and as cheap you can get and pretty bad for weight gain, but still vastly better than what most poor overweight people eat. 

Again, they probably don't now how to shop for and cook a healthy cheap meal with a lot of produce and economical proteins; but I just can't believe that they don't know that eating spaghetti with prepared sauce and simple sandwiches would be better than the crap they actually eat, or that lack of culinary skills is what is preventing them from making spaghetti with a prepared sauce or putting together sandwiches.   

[Tyson]

When I posted earlier about people in poverty having poor life skills (and thus their kids inheret poor life skills) this is one of those areas.  Healthy food prep seems expensive and laborious so they go with prepackaged stuff that is easy and seems cheap.  They don't know any better, and more importantly there's no one around to teach them.

[Jrr85]

Private schools have different tools available to manage fluctuating populations that public schools don't. Comparing the finances of the two is actually really difficult to do as a result. Very few public schools have endowments and those can provide a lot of flexibility.

  Lots of private schools operate without endowments and still manage the same problems.  To the extent public schools are constrained by policy choices that make them unable to do the same, that is an argument against the policies in question or maybe just public schools in general, not against vouchers. 

No. I'm going to repeat myself here: vouchers aren't going to give poor and middle class people access to the same education that upper middle class and rich people have.

  Well, if we're going to make irrelevant statements that don't address anything anybody else has said, I will say No.  The sky is blue.  Is that how it works?  Say no, and then pull a statement out of thin air?  Or should I pick something tangentially related to schools.  Like "No.  Highschools are composed mostly of teenage students."?   

They aren't going to give "some of the options."

  Well this is just provably false.  One option is to leave a school that's not serving their needs without having to change residences.  That's an option that middle class and rich have that vouchers give to poor students.  Another option is to be able to demand better administration by credibly threatening to leave, again an option that rich and middle class students have that vouchers would give to poor people. 

The flexibility they offer is dubious at best because in a lot of cases the bigger problem is at home, not the school.

  And now you're changing problems that vouchers aren't meant to address and that public schools also don't address.  Why should vouchers have to solve problems that the public schools don't in order to be a good thing?

Like you said, reasonably smart kids can do fine with a mediocre (or even a poor!) school if they have good support at home.

  It depends on what kind of scale you grade on;  I suspect the schools you think of as "poor schools" I would classify as mediocre.  Or maybe it depends on what you call doing fine.  Again, I come across very few kids who have made it out of bad schools.  Even accounting for the fact that most parents with social capital work hard to keep their kids out of said bad schools, they still have fewer success stories than you would expect.  Even if you define success down to mean "graduate without a criminal record", there are fewer success stories than you would expect. 

  If you have really bad support at home though, even the best schools (non-boarding) are facing a massive challenge. There are a lot of cases where shitty schools are a sign of equally shitty parents at home.

   I would say the vast majority of shitty schools are a sign of shitty parents at home.  Many of those schools probably started with shitty administrations that scared off the non-shitty parents (that's what happened to the bad school in my home town), but I have no clue what percentage. 

I can say the same thing about most Americans and their blind faith in the free market and capitalism. You are correct in that just throwing money at a problem will not fix it, but that's also effectively what people want to do with voucher programs - throw money at the free market and see if it fixes the problem. Never mind the fact that even when the market is operating efficiently it can take several iterations to arrive at an efficient way of doing things.

  Vouchers not throwing money at the problem.  They often don't require any more significant spending (and maybe no more spending at all).  Vouchers are primarily about ending the immoral practice of more or less condemning some students to not have a chance at a good education simply because they are poor and their parents can't or don't move to a good school district.  I think there likely will be some positive effects from having schools responsive to parents, and I think it's good policy to encourage that, but the driving force behind vouchers should just be compassion and morals.  Lots of kids are in shitty home situations and we don't know how to spare them from the effects of that, but we can at the very least stop condemning children that are in adequate home situations, except for the fact that they are poor. 

[Jrr85]

No. I'm going to repeat myself here: vouchers aren't going to give poor and middle class people access to the same education that upper middle class and rich people have.

  Well, if we're going to make irrelevant statements that don't address anything anybody else has said, I will say No.  The sky is blue.  Is that how it works?  Say no, and then pull a statement out of thin air?  Or should I pick something tangentially related to schools.  Like "No.  Highschools are composed mostly of teenage students."?

How's that an irrelevant statement? "You said Which is why I said 'some of the options' and 'a little bit of that flexibility'." with regards to vouchers and giving poor and lower middle class parents access to the same options as upper middle class and rich parents. I said your wrong and repeated myself for emphasis.

  Because I never (and to my knowledge nobody ever) said that vouchers would give poor kids the same educational options as middle class and rich people.  I just said they would give them some of the options.  So why take time to talk about a position that nobody has taken?   

It looks like we are in agreement that educational outcomes depend a lot on parenting skills. Of course, if that is the case, then I would argue that the bigger policy concern is not the schools themselves, but the conditions that the students have at home.

  I'm not sure if it's the bigger policy concern, because it's such a huge issue that I'm not sure it's even easily boiled down to a policy.  But yes, if we could magically change the world to where there weren't large pockets of populations of kids in dysfunctional home situations, education policy would be pretty simple. 

Vouchers don't throw more money at the problem, but they are effectively doing the same thing. Going to the previous point about shitty parents. If the root cause of the problem is that the students have poor home environments, how much does it really matter if they go to a public school or a charter school?

  For students that have shitty parents, it probably doesn't matter at all.  For students with parents that care and have the barest amount of social capital, it can matter a great deal, being a matter of life and death in some situations, and others just the difference between a successful life and an unsuccessful life, and in others, it will end up not being a difference at all. 

I see where you are coming from and I think at the end of the day we both agree as to the problem that needs to be address, but not how to address it.

  To be a little bit ticky tacky, I would disagree with this by saying that we both agree what the biggest/most harmful problem is, but I want to limit the harm from that problem by fixing the problems we do know how to fix until we figure out how to solve the bigger problem; while you ??don't want to minimize the harm of it, because I assume you think somehow limiting the harm of it now will prevent us from solving the bigger problem??

My biggest problem with vouchers is when students are being directed to for-profit schools given the recent failures of for-profit higher education. Going to my point awhile back about what happens if a school closes in the middle of the year? That's highly disruptive to the student and public schools tend to have a lot of controls in place to keep it from happening. Basically, I agree with the idea that parents should have more options in terms of their child's education, but I disagree that the current voucher system proposals out there are a good way of doing that. I also think that public school reform can be done with a lot less effort than a well functioning voucher system and as such think that is a more effective use time than trying to get a voucher system on line.

  I do not expect that you will see most primary and secondary education filled by the for profit sector.  There will be some, but the high education sector is only so rife with corruption (on both the profit and non-profit side) because so much federal money is available through pell grants and through federally guaranteed loans.  But regardless, that's such a minor problem compared to the harm bad schools are doing now.  Even if 10% of charter schools or  non-public schools aimed at voucher dependent students closed mid year, looking at worst case scenario those students essentially lose one year.  They will largely be coming from bad school situations anyway, so it's not clear how valuable that year is, and the harm doesn't seem very large compared to the harm of trapping poor kids in terrible schools. 

But of course, I'm not sure why people would expect mid-year closures to be anything but the rarest of circumstances.  Schools may limp to the finish of an academic year, but even if charter or private schools showed a tendency to shut down mid year, how hard would it be to stop that with regulations associated with vouchers?  It's not like voucher or charter programs are some libertarian paradise.  There's varying levels of oversight, but I would bet almost zero programs set up where regulators/accreditors didn't have the ability to at least check their books and projected revenues each year to make sure there was a low likelihood of them running out of money mid year.   

[Out of the Blue]

I think it is entirely natural for the top 20% to want the best for their children, which may mean doing all they can to keep their children in the top 20% also.  But I don't believe that is the best for society as a whole, and my view is that the government should try to level the playing field a little through redistributions.  In my perfect world, the government would levy heavy inheritance/gift taxes and use the proceeds to invest heavily in redistributive initiatives such as education and maybe even a universal basic income.  (I do recognise some practical problems with implementing such high inheritance/gift taxes, but will put those aside for now.)

I'm talking inheritance taxes of close to 100%, with a modest tax-free exemption of maybe $20k-$50k per recipient (some exceptions may apply for parents dying before their children reach the age of 21).  Is this fair? In my view, absolutely.  I don't believe in inheritances.  I don't plan to have children, but if I did, I wouldn't leave them anything in my will unless I kicked the bucket before they turned, say, 25.  Instead, I'd give my entire stash to charities (I'll set aside a small sum for funeral arrangements etc).  The reasoning being that I'm pretty sure I would have equipped my children with the education and skills needed to succeed, and the money would do a lot more good in the charities' hands than in my children's. 

Easy for me to say, given that I don't plan to have children, right?  Well I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is.  I expect to receive a decent inheritance from my mother when she passes, being half of our paid-off family home.  Given house prices in that area currently, it will likely be worth a few hundred thousand.  Enough to get me to FIRE, if I have not FIRE'd by then.  Regardless, I plan to give 100% of my inheritance to charity.  I don't need the money, and almost feel like it would be "cheating" to use it.  Although my family was not rich growing up, my parents were frugal and financially stable and gave me a good education.  I know I'll be absolutely fine. 

[BTDretire]

The author's suggestion to tax the top 20% more is kind of humorous to me, only because that's really the only option anyway.

The bottom 50% don't pay any taxes at all, and approximately the bottom 33% actually get credits.

So of the remaining 50% that DO pay taxes, of course the top half of that would be the ones you could tax more. That's your only option!

The government's time might be better spent trying to figure out ways to expand the tax base, versus just taxing the ones already taxed more. Maybe figure out why 1/3 of the entire population has a negative tax rate.

This statement is true only if you restrict it to INCOME Tax. If  you include payroll tax, sales tax, etc., the amount of skenwness in the tax burden goes down considerably.

See above.  Payroll tax, sales tax, etc, do not fund the federal government, and in the case of sales tax, isn't a federal tax at all and so the feds have no business raising it.

Many people when taking about the poor throw in, "but they pay payroll taxes", which are Social Security taxes.
I see it as forced retitement savings. It is not supporting any government program. If the low income person stays that way, he/she will collect more in SS than they ever paid in. I don't consider this as part of the tax pie that supports America.

[Bucksandreds]

The author's suggestion to tax the top 20% more is kind of humorous to me, only because that's really the only option anyway.

The bottom 50% don't pay any taxes at all, and approximately the bottom 33% actually get credits.

So of the remaining 50% that DO pay taxes, of course the top half of that would be the ones you could tax more. That's your only option!

The government's time might be better spent trying to figure out ways to expand the tax base, versus just taxing the ones already taxed more. Maybe figure out why 1/3 of the entire population has a negative tax rate.

This statement is true only if you restrict it to INCOME Tax. If  you include payroll tax, sales tax, etc., the amount of skenwness in the tax burden goes down considerably.

See above.  Payroll tax, sales tax, etc, do not fund the federal government, and in the case of sales tax, isn't a federal tax at all and so the feds have no business raising it.

Many people when taking about the poor throw in, "but they pay payroll taxes", which are Social Security taxes.
I see it as forced retitement savings. It is not supporting any government program. If the low income person stays that way, he/she will collect more in SS than they ever paid in. I don't consider this as part of the tax pie that supports America.

The facts don't back up your assertion.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/as-the-poor-die-earlier-social-security-isnt-paying-off/

[Paul der Krake]

The facts don't back up your assertion.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/as-the-poor-die-earlier-social-security-isnt-paying-off/

The study that the article quotes is here:
http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/676086.pdf

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the methodology, but it sounds like they're talking about a reduction in benefits, and don't make the claim that poor workers are getting shafted and receiving less than they paid for.

Example (greatly simplified, obviously):

You have a pool of 2 people: 1 high earner, and one low earner, wi. The high earner with normal life expectancy puts in $70, gets $50 back. The low earner puts $30, should get $50 back because Social Security is progressive. Except now low earner dies earlier than anticipated and only gets $35.

The low earner still comes out ahead. Unless they die incredibly early, that is.

[Bucksandreds]

The facts don't back up your assertion.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/as-the-poor-die-earlier-social-security-isnt-paying-off/

The study that the article quotes is here:
http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/676086.pdf

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the methodology, but it sounds like they're talking about a reduction in benefits, and don't make the claim that poor workers are getting shafted and receiving less than they paid for.

Example (greatly simplified, obviously):

You have a pool of 2 people: 1 high earner, and one low earner, wi. The high earner with normal life expectancy puts in $70, gets $50 back. The low earner puts $30, should get $50 back because Social Security is progressive. Except now low earner dies earlier than anticipated and only gets $35.

The low earner still comes out ahead. Unless they die incredibly early, that is.

Your methodology is off.  Social security payouts are linked to payins so someone putting in $70 and someone else putting in $30 would not each get back $50.

[Paul der Krake]

The facts don't back up your assertion.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/as-the-poor-die-earlier-social-security-isnt-paying-off/

The study that the article quotes is here:
http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/676086.pdf

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the methodology, but it sounds like they're talking about a reduction in benefits, and don't make the claim that poor workers are getting shafted and receiving less than they paid for.

Example (greatly simplified, obviously):

You have a pool of 2 people: 1 high earner, and one low earner, wi. The high earner with normal life expectancy puts in $70, gets $50 back. The low earner puts $30, should get $50 back because Social Security is progressive. Except now low earner dies earlier than anticipated and only gets $35.

The low earner still comes out ahead. Unless they die incredibly early, that is.

Your methodology is off.  Social security payouts are linked to payins so someone putting in $70 and someone else putting in $30 would not each get back $50.

Yes, that's a greatly simplified example, as I pointed out.

Social Security payments are linked to what you put in. There is a formula, complete with bendpoints. The expected benefit for low earners is much higher that their contributions, and much lower for high earners, otherwise the program just wouldn't work.

So my question is: are low earners getting less money than they are putting in, or just not as much as the formula would have expected?
If it's #1, they are subsidizing high earners, a rather extraordinary claim.
If it's #2, they are still being subsidized, just not as much as originally planned.

The study seems to stop well short of claiming #1.

[2Birds1Stone]

20%ers: in the last year, count the number of people with whom you have you had meaningful, non-transactional conversations, who:

- didn't go to college, or
- have had children out of wedlock, or
- are the beneficiaries of a direct transfer government assistance program, or
- can name 3 or more NASCAR drivers

Most of you can probably count these interactions on one hand.

I don't think this is very relevant, but I'll bite.

I'm a 20%er with no college degree, I have many friends who are also 20%ers and even 10%ers who have had kids out of wedlock, and plenty in my social circle who get government assistance.

We all hate NASCAR though.

[clarkfan1979]

I find the idea of funding schools from local taxes bizarre. Here is NZ we do the opposite. Essentially the lower the socioeconomic level of the school the more government funding it receives. I read about some of the low sociology economic schools in the states and you have to think that those kids are doomed before they've been given a chance.

School funding from local taxes is a massive problem for the United States, but good luck actually getting people to try and fix it. There is noise about fixing it right now... by introducing school vouchers so you can send you children to a for-profit school because the local public school is underfunded.

Part of the problem with a lot of these socioeconomic problems is that people want quick fixes that they can see the impact of in their lifetime and ideally for themselves as well. Even if the United States were to pass legislation today that ensured that each school got regional COLA adjusted funding per child at a high enough level ensure success (whatever that figure is, we have no idea), it would still take years before the impacts were seen in terms of hiring and school infrastructure. Most likely you are talking about the next generation of children being the ones to see the impacts.

+ 1

Education is a solid investment. However, it takes 15-20 years to see the benefits. The U.S. does not have the patience for these types of investments, so they typically go underfunded.